The answer, I believe, fundamentally comes down to the identifiable nature of the costs. In this way, chargebacks for hard drive space are no different than any other cost. Given that Direct Costs are those that can be specifically identified with a particular project or program, if the use of disk space, computer time, etc is directly identifiable to a particular project, these costs should be considered direct costs and charged to the project as such.
I have had discussions along these lines with Information Services here at UMKC. For instance, the Chief Information Officer in a meeting mentioned that the projects of two investigators were specifically responsible for a identifable (surprisingly large) percentage of network services. These can be considered direct costs to those projects. However, the backlash has to be considered as well: it is not easy to begin charging for something that has always been considered an institutional, and not project, expense.
Good luck.
John
John R. Baumann, Ph.D.
Director
Office of Sponsored Programs & Research Support
University of Missouri -- Kansas City
5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110
816.235.1303 (v)
816.235.6532 (f)
xxxxxx@umkc.edu
location: 5211 Rockhill Road
-----Original Message-----
From: Kaufman, Patrick [mailto:xxxxxx@STOWERS-INSTITUTE.ORG]
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 9:05 AM
To: xxxxxx@HRINET.ORG
Subject: [RESADM-L] Chargebacks for Hard Drive Space
Do any of your institutions/universities charge your investigator's research budgets (either grant or institutional) with IT costs? We are looking at ways to incent our investigators to manage their use of disk storage (hard drive) space, and are considering using a chargeback mechanism to do this (based on amount of usage). If you do, please reply, and briefly comment on your chargeback methodology and rate structure.
Thanks so much!
Pat Kaufman
Director of Accounting and Grants Admin.
Stowers Institute for Medical Research
Kansas City, MO
xxxxxx@stowers-institute.org
816-926-4027
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